


Seven Hundred and Eight Dollars

by Em_Jaye



Series: Sparks of Light [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Chance Meetings, F/M, Inspired by Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Nomad Steve Rogers, One Shot, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sorry Not Sorry, Texas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: “Texas?” He could have sworn he was still in Oklahoma.She nodded. “Uh-huh. Want me to prove it?”His frown deepened. “How would you—”
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: Sparks of Light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696234
Comments: 89
Kudos: 510





	Seven Hundred and Eight Dollars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MsEnglish101](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsEnglish101/gifts).



> Oh boy this is silly. I saw Pee-Wee's Big Adventure for the first time ever and was struck by how absolutely delightful it was and naturally thought, "Could I Shieldshock a piece of this? Maybe a little?" So. Here we are. All the funny stuff is the work of Paul Reubens, Phil Hartman, and Michael Varhol, everything else is me having fun. 
> 
> Edit: Since I just found out that this was posted on the birthday of one of my favorite Darcyland reader-friends, I'm giving it as a belated gift. 😘 For you, sweet English, I hope you have the best trip around the sun. 
> 
> Hope you like it? Even though it's complete silliness.

He probably could have pushed on to the next town before his hunger got the better of him. But he didn’t know exactly how far that might be. The place up ahead boasted a much-needed gas station and a roadside diner with a pair of enormous dinosaurs—a pink brontosaurus and a green T-Rex—in the lawn.

The dinosaurs caught his eye first. He supposed they were meant to. He saw them in the distance by the only light on this long and empty highway. Their presence woke him up and drew his attention back down to the gas gauge on his bike. Not empty, but not nearly full enough to get him to his rendezvous with Sam in Santa Fe.

So, Steve went with the safe bet instead of leaving yet one more thing to chance and pulled into the gas station. The attendant took his twenty-dollar bill and filled the tank without discussion—not surprising for three in the morning. There was no change, but Steve caught his attention before he turned away and motioned to the diner. “That open?”

“Twenty-five/eight,” the teenager said with a shrug. “Chocolate pie’s real good.”

A bell above the door jingled as he pulled it open. It was a standard roadside dive—a handful of booths along the window, a jukebox that had seen better days, and six chrome stools along a Formica counter, on the corner of which sat a rotating glass pie case. Three of the booths were occupied by overweight men in faded t-shirts, full gray beards and threadbare ballcaps. Steve took a seat at the counter and picked up a menu.

He looked at the list of standard fare without really reading any of it. His mind was already in Santa Fe, hoping the rest of his team had had better luck in the two weeks since they’d split up outside of Cleveland. If they had, Sam, Natasha, and Wanda would be waiting for him with cash, a fresh passport and a list of verified safehouses where they could confidently lay low for the next few months. He hoped they wouldn’t be too disappointed that he wouldn’t have as much to share. He’d been hoping that after more than a year out of the country, there would be something new to grab hold of, but his raid of east coast government facilities had been more bloody than beneficial. He hadn’t found out anything about Ross’ on-going manhunt that he didn’t already know and after four failures and one genuine explosion, he had enough blood on his hands to cross it off his list of potential plans.

“What sounds good, my friend?” a friendly female voice drew his attention up from the laminated menu card. The waitress on the other side of the counter was pretty—a ponytail of long, dark curls high on her head, blue eyes and full red lips that didn’t go with the pale green dress of her uniform at all. Her nametag read _Darcy_ and was pinned close to a button across her chest that was begging to pop open.

“Oh,” he blinked, realizing he didn’t know how to answer her question, and looked back down again.

She smiled. “Need another minute?”

He shook his head. “No, no, I’ll just…um…” he shrugged. He wasn’t going to taste it anyway. “The burger’s fine.”

Darcy nodded, not writing anything down. “Everything on that?”

“Okay.”

“Anything to drink?”

He shrugged. “Water’s good.”

“Water it is,” she agreed. “Want me to class it up with a lemon? No charge.”

He smirked. “Sure.”

She brought him back a glass of ice water with a lemon wedge clipped to the rim and a roll of silverware in a paper napkin. He couldn’t help but notice that her dress was a little too tight everywhere when she turned around to the pass window and waved for the attention of the cook. It was short enough to notice that she wore a pair of black bike shorts underneath, edged with lace. Before Steve reminded himself that he didn’t have time to be noticing things like that.

“Number three with everything,” she said when a man who looked to be in his early twenties appeared on the other side. He wore a black apron over a t-shirt and a ballcap on his head.

“C’mon, Darcy,” he said with a heavy Southern accent. “You know you gotta write it down.”

Steve felt her roll her eyes from where he sat. “You need me to waste the paper to write down one single order?”

“I ain’t make the rules,” he countered. This sounded like an argument that had already gone a few rounds.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, pulling an order pad from the pocket of her white apron. He watched, amused, as she reached across the counter and grabbed a dry-erase marker from a coffee cup and wrote the number three big enough to take up the whole piece of paper. “Here,” she ripped it off and handed it to him. “Is that clear enough for you?”

“Anything on it?”

Darcy let out a loud, grievous sigh. “I’m going to hold your face to the grill,” she groaned under her breath before she swiped the paper back and scribbled _with everything_ on the very bottom line. The line cook took the paper and Steve watched him clip it to the rail above the flattop before he got to work on his meal. Darcy turned back around and offered a tight-lipped grimace. “He’s the bane of my existence.”

Steve felt himself smile again. There was something pleasant about her. Something soft. Comforting. “You hide it well.”

She hummed when she smiled back and slid a caddy of silverware a few inches down the counter. He watched as her nails tore easily into a package of napkins and she stacked a fork and knife together before rolling it tightly and setting it aside. “Do you mind the company?” she asked after she’d made quick work of three rolls. “Or are you trying to be alone?”

Steve blinked and looked up from her hands. “Uh, sorry—what?”

Her smile softened. “You look kind of lonely,” she said quietly. “If you don’t mind my saying. I just figured I’d ask if you preferred it that way, or if you minded me hanging around making conversation.”

He should mind. He should tell her to leave him alone—politely, he didn’t have to be rude—so he could return to his thoughts. His strategy. Only he’d been thinking about his strategy for the last four days straight and that train of thought was starting to wear a little thin. He should tell her he minded if for no other reason than he didn’t know her and couldn’t trust her and had no idea if she’d recognize him.

Even with his hair longer and his beard covering most of his face, Steve wasn’t big on taking chances. Ross had eyes and ears everywhere.

But he felt himself shake his head, despite thinking he’d just decided to keep to himself. “You’re okay,” he heard himself say with a shrug. Surprising himself further, he asked, “Do you always work the graveyard shift?”

Her shoulder rolled, but her hands didn’t stop their wrapping. “I prefer the late-night clientele,” she admitted. “Where are you headed?”

“El Paso,” he lied easily. “Any idea how much farther I have to go?”

Her full lips pursed in thought. “From here?” her head tilted to one side and a thick, dark curl slipped into her eyes. “Maybe seven…eight hours?” She tucked her hair back.

Steve frowned. “Eight hours?” he repeated. That didn’t feel right. He’d been thinking closer to twelve just to get to Santa Fe. “This is going to sound stupid,” he assured her, wondering how he’d managed to space out so completely that he no longer had any idea how long he’d been driving. “But where am I?”

She only smiled again. Bright. Disarming. She had a gap between her front teeth. “You’re about four miles outside the bustling metropolis of Goodnight, Texas, my friend. The next thing that closest resembles a _town_ , though is Claude—that’s about eight miles up the road.”

He blinked. “Texas?” He could have sworn he was still in Oklahoma.

She nodded. “Uh-huh. Want me to prove it?”

His frown deepened. “How would you—”

But Darcy cut him off and raised her voice. “ _The stars at night,”_ she sang, loud enough to attract the attention of the other patrons, _“are big and bright—”_

To his surprise, the five other men in booths behind him and the grill cook through the window all raised their hands and gave four quick claps before they sang back, “ _Deep in the heart of Texas!”_ before returning to their conversations and the grill as if nothing had happened.

His waitress grinned. “See?” she lifted her eyebrows. “That doesn’t happen anywhere else.” Without warning, she reached over and put a hand on his arm. “And thank you, by the way, I’ve waited my entire life to be able to do that.”

He laughed lightly. “You’re welcome.” She didn’t pull her hand away quickly. “You don’t—um—” he shook his head. This was stupid. He didn’t need to be making conversation with this woman who was too easy to talk to. He should stop now, pay for the food he wasn’t going to eat, and get back on his bike before he gave anything away.

“I don’t what?”

“You’re not from around here?” he guessed. “You don’t sound like you’re from Texas.”

“Oh no,” she shook her head and returned to rolling silverware. “I’m from Baltimore. I got stuck here by accident,” she went on before he could ask something along the lines of _what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?_

“Stuck here?” he repeated.

She nodded again. “I was doing this whole, _Eat Pray Love_ thing after I finished my masters. I was going to see the world and eat a bunch of food and have a string of intense, but ultimately meaningless affairs with men and women on a few continents before I figured out what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life.”

The corner of his mouth twitched into another unintentional smile. “And you started in Goodnight, Texas?”

Darcy squinted her eyes and tilted her head to the side again. “If _your_ goal was to have a string of intense but meaningless affairs across the world, would _you_ start in Goodnight, Texas?”

“Well yeah,” he said, somehow managing to maintain a straight face. “That’s what I’m doing…”

She snorted and shook her head. “I started in London,” she said after a moment. “But when I came back home, I could only afford my little piece of trash Nova which, surprisingly, only made it this far on my way to California.”

His frown returned. “How long ago was that?”

She squinted again. “Uh…one year, four months, twelve days and…” she stretched her neck to peer at his watch, “nine hours ago?”

“But who’s counting?”

“Definitely not me,” she smiled before she shrugged. “No, it’s fine. I’m about…seven-hundred dollars away from a drivable car and then I can get right back to my little journey of self-discovery.”

Behind her on the chrome pass-bar, a plate stacked high with a cheeseburger and a pile of fries appeared. She turned at the sound and had it in her hand by the time the grill cook reached out and smacked a small bell. It had a jarring ring. “Order up,” he said.

Darcy stared. “Jett. I’m already here. The plate is in my hand. Please stop hitting that bell.” She had set the plate in front of Steve before Jett could respond. “Enjoy,” she said with another quiet smile as she slid a bottle of ketchup closer to him. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

She left him to eat in peace, but he found she was difficult to ignore. She chatted with everyone while she cleared their tables and wiped down one that was empty. He had assumed the truckers in the booths were just passing through, like himself, but she called almost all of them by their first names. She told one who was leaving to be safe, another to say hi to his wife for her when she set his check down; she asked a third man, sitting alone in the corner booth, if his granddaughter had had her baby yet and beamed excitedly when the older man shyly pulled out a phone and showed her a picture.

He ate quickly. Jett may have been an idiot who seemed to enjoy making Darcy roll her eyes, but he knew his way around a burger. Or maybe Steve was just hungrier than he realized. Either way, by the time Darcy had cleared the plates of two diners and cashed another out at the old-fashioned register at the end of the counter, his plate was nearly clean.

Darcy lifted her eyebrows again. “Looks like you hated it,” she commented as he dragged a French fry through the last of his puddle of ketchup. 

“Yeah, it was gross,” he assured her.

“You want another?”

He did, but he made himself shake his head. “No thanks. It was good, though.” He swiped at his mouth with the scratchy paper napkin. “I should probably be heading out anyway.”

She nodded. He told himself the flash of disappointment that crossed her face was just his imagination. She didn’t care if he left. She didn’t even know his name. “El Paso waits for no one,” she said and reached for his grill ticket again to set it next to his glass of water. “That’ll be eight bucks whenever you’re ready.”

He nodded and reached for his wallet, not remembering until he did so that there was a reason he’d told himself not to stop for anything other than gas. With a sinking feeling in his gut and a strong desire to drive the heel of his hand against his forehead, Steve went through the motions of pulling it from his pocket anyway. Just in case. In case by some miracle there was a spare ten he’d forgotten about. That he hadn’t put the very last of his money into his gas tank. But it was empty, missing only the cartoon fly buzzing out when he opened it. “Shit,” he muttered.

When he looked up, Darcy was biting her lip. “It’s okay,” she said quickly, keeping her voice down. “I can cover you.”

He was already shaking his head. “No, no that’s not fair.”

“It’s eight bucks,” she reminded with a soft laugh. “It’s not going to cripple me or anything.”

“Really,” he said, wondering where this sense of moral upright was coming from. He shouldn’t have stopped in the first place—he should just say thanks and get back on the road. But when he opened his mouth to do just that, all that came out was, “You’re trying to get out of here—I can’t take your money.”

Her chest rose and fell with a heavy exhale and she narrowed her eyes. “Honorable type, huh?”

He scoffed. “Not so much anymore,” he admitted. “Just too proud to take charity from anyone.” Something he really needed to get over given his status as an international fugitive.

She pouted her full lips in thought for a moment. “You’re not too proud to wash dishes, are you?”

Steve had never run a commercial dishwasher before, but it turned out be exactly as easy as it looked on the laminated pictogram stuck above the sink. Darcy had Jett walk him through one load and then he was left alone to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

She’d warned him before she handed him an apron that their usual dishwasher had gone home three hours early. The backlog was impressive; he lost track of how many times he’d filled and run the machine. It was nice to have something so mindless to do, leaving him free to return the rest of his attention to his next stop, his next step, his next move.

He jumped at the feeling of a hand on his back.

“Sorry,” Darcy exclaimed, coming around his right. Her cheeks tinged pink and she smiled. “I thought you heard me.”

He shook his head. “Got in the zone.”

Her eyes moved from his to the nearly empty dish tank and the stacks of clean dishes and silverware waiting to be returned. “I’ll say,” she said and let out a low whistle. “You more than worked off that burger,” she assured him. “Anything more and I’d just be taking advantage.”

He nodded and untied the apron she’d given him. She took it and tossed it into a laundry basket full of other black aprons and white bar mops. “Was there—uh—anything else you needed me to do?” he asked before he could stop himself.

He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He didn’t need to do anything other than get on his bike and get the hell to Santa Fe. He didn’t need to be lingering, hoping this waitress would keep talking to him or find another reason for him to stick around.

Darcy shook her head. “Oh, no, you're free to go,” she promised. “Unless you—” Her teeth pressed into her bottom lip and she shook her head. “Never mind. You’re all set.”

Good to go, his common sense whispered. So go. But he didn’t. He hesitated and studied the way she was busying herself with scooping up a stack of the plates he’d just washed. “Unless I what?”

Darcy walked past him, shaking her head again. “It’s stupid,” she assured him when he followed her to the grill. “You’re good.” She set down the plates and turned back to him. The grill was empty—Jett was no where to be seen. Out front, through the pass-window, he saw another woman in a pale green dress had arrived and was brewing fresh coffee.

Steve rolled a shoulder in a shrug. “Then consider me curious.”

She bit down on her lip a third time. He wondered if she ever went home with dark spots or bruises from her teeth. Inconveniently, the idea of what it would take to bruise her lips a different—more pleasant—way fluttered through his mind before he could stop it. “Unless you wanted to come and watch the sunrise with me from inside the T-Rex.”

He smiled. “I’ve… never watched the sun rise from inside a T-Rex.”

Darcy grinned and Steve felt something tighten in his chest. “No better way to greet a morning on this wide and high prairie sky.” She paused before she ducked behind the grill line. “Do you like waffles?”

He did like waffles and therefore didn’t complain when Darcy piled two fluffy Belgian waffles into a takeout container and handed it to him to hold while she mixed two chocolate milkshakes.

She didn’t ask if he liked milkshakes.

There was a small door in the right leg of the lime green T-Rex. Darcy jiggled a cheap-looking combination lock until it popped open and she pulled on the squeaking door, holding it open for him to follow her up a set of clanging iron steps. There was a small landing at the top, directly between the rows of painted spiked teeth—just big enough for two people to sit with a Styrofoam clamshell of waffles between them.

The dinosaur faced east and the dark sky and land stretched out infinitely before them. At the edge of the horizon there was just a faint hint of light. A glimmer of the dawn on its way.

Darcy had taken a few bites of her waffle but waited until his mouth was full before she cleared her throat. “It’s Steve, right?”

He coughed and had to stop himself from choking on his own sharp inhale. He pressed a fist to his chest and ran through a dozen scenarios while his eyes watered. How long it would take him to get out from this enclosed space—how quickly he could subdue Darcy and make sure she forgot she ever saw him—how long did he have before someone showed up to haul him away--

“Calm down,” she raced on, reaching a hand across the space between them. Her fingers almost touched his thigh, but she held herself just short. “I’m not going to tell anyone.” She peered around to meet his eye. “I just wanted to be sure I made the right call and not doing espionage for someone who just has similar cheekbones.”

He swallowed thickly. “The right call?”

“There was a guy in there,” she motioned with her head back to the diner. “Didn’t recognize him—didn’t like the look of him. And _really_ didn’t like the way he was watching you while you were talking to me. Especially when you mentioned you were going to El Paso.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s none of my business, but you’re not _really_ going to El Paso, are you?” Still eyeing her warily, Steve shook his head. She seemed to relax a modicum. “Good. Anyway, sorry for the ambush. I just didn’t know how else to tell you—and I wanted to give you a chance to tell the rest of your team to change plans if you needed to.” She dug into the pocket of her dress and handed him a napkin with a license plate number. “If he’s worth anything, he ditched that car on his way to El Paso, but just in case. It was a black Suburban. I watched him leave just before you were done with the dishes.”

He blinked. “And… why would you do any of that?”

Darcy’s smile was soft again, almost apologetic. As if she felt bad for not having made this confession earlier. “We have a mutual friend,” she admitted.

“We do?”

She nodded. “Big guy? Blonde? Very polite for someone who likes to fight as much as he does? Code name: god of thunder?”

Steve’s smile was holding back some disbelief. “You know Thor?”

She nodded again. “He and my boss used to be a thing. I set up his whole social media presence.”

He found himself struck dumb by the way these had just rolled off her tongue. But the longer he looked at her while she looked away and focused too hard on unwrapping her straw and taking a gulp of her milkshake, the more he realized that he had seen her before. They’d never met, but she’d been trailing after Dr. Foster on at least one of the astrophysicist’s trips to the tower, back when he had lived there.

Before Ultron. And the move north to the compound. And the Accords. And everything else.

Finally he found his voice. “You know you’re committing a felony by helping me out, right?”

She gave him a wry smile before her throat bobbed as she swallowed her drink. “You can just let me worry about that.” She set the cup on her other side. “When I was trying to figure out why your band broke up, I read The Accords.”

He nodded. “Your thoughts?”

She let out a dry laugh. “Myriad,” she said, bringing another half-smile to his face. “But I think you were right not to go along with them.” When he looked up again, she shrugged. “Call me crazy, but anything that starts with forcing one group of people to register themselves for easier,” she coughed, “identification from the government, doesn’t usually end with group hugs and free kittens. Ya know?”

“Yeah,” he exhaled. “I know.”

She looked at him for what felt like a long time before she reached for her milkshake again. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

The sky was lighter by then. The speck of sun on the horizon had grown brighter, bringing with it a wash of soft blues and hints of early morning pink and orange.

“So once you save up for that drivable car,” he said when it felt like one of them should say something. “It’s right back to your string of food and lovers around the world?”

She smiled and shrugged again. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was starting to get a little lonely.” She cut roughly into the waffle she’d claimed with the edge of her plastic fork. “I mean,” she went on quickly, “I’m not going to stay _here._ But…a permanent address would be nice.” She sighed. “Maybe somewhere I can smell the ocean.”

“What about your family?” he asked before he could stop himself from asking something so personal. She might have done him a solid, but he didn’t have the right to pry into her life.

But if she was offended, she didn’t let on. “Don’t really have any,” she said simply. “My mom ran off when I was a baby—gave me to my grandparents. My grandpa died when I was in high school and my grandma died a year after I graduated from college. She always used to tell me that I had adventures in my veins,” she smiled softly again and straightened her elbow, turning her creamy arm underside up as if examining the faint blue veins for some trace of her grandmother’s words. “So,” her shoulder moved again. “I guess as long as it’s an adventure at least I know she’s proud of me.”

He could blame it on his own loneliness—how every part of him was longing to be touched—or the way the pre-dawn light seemed to make Darcy’s fair skin and dark hair glow. Or how her lips were just so full and inviting. He could blame it on whatever he wanted, but whatever it was brought his hand to her cheek and turned her to him. His fingers sank into her hair when he lowered his lips to hers.

She made a sound of surprise against him in the second before she relaxed, and her fingers curled in his t-shirt. She opened her lips beneath his and the little sigh she made as he deepened the kiss cut right through him.

He heard a sound he couldn’t place, and he tensed for a moment before he realized it had been Darcy sliding the takeout container from between them so she could pull herself closer. She broke away just long enough for him to catch the way she smiled at him in the dim light before he dropped his arm around her shoulders, and she pulled his lips back to hers. He stroked her cheek with his thumb; she was so soft and warm, and this shouldn’t have felt so right, but it did.

“Steve,” she broke away with a breathless whisper.

He felt a rush of regret. He shouldn’t have done that—it didn’t matter how lonely he was, how kind and brave and beautiful Darcy was—she didn’t deserve this. If anyone knew what she’d done for him— “I’m sor—”

Her hand slipped from his neck to his lips and she covered them, shaking her head. “Don’t ruin that with an apology,” she said softly. “I want to keep kissing you,” she added, bringing her hand away from his mouth. “But I don’t want you to miss the best part.” She glanced to her left and the opening of the T-Rex where Steve saw, to his surprise that the sky had brightened to a brilliant magenta, streaked with soft purple and deep orange.

He felt his mouth drop open a fraction of an inch. Darcy shifted beside him again and pulled his arm tighter around her shoulders while she tucked herself beneath his chin. She rested her head on his chest. “Wow,” he heard himself whisper. He couldn’t remember when he’d last taken a moment to really watch a day begin or end. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen colors like that.

“Beautiful, right?”

“Yeah.”

They stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s arms in a strangely comfortable silence, until the colors had all but melted into a soft, bright blue morning sky. She didn’t kiss him again, but she laced her fingers with his and didn’t let go while they made their way slowly down the stairs and back outside.

She stood in front of him, squinting a little in the light and raised her other hand to push back a piece of his hair. “Time for you to go, huh?”

He nodded, wishing he didn’t have to. That he could stay—or she could come with him—and he could get to know her. That he could go with her to see the ocean. That they could take their time somewhere beautiful. “I—uh—” he coughed. “I’m really glad I got to meet you, Darcy.”

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and she swallowed. “I’m about to say something stupid.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, there are bunch of stupid things I want to say,” she corrected herself with a thoughtful frown. “But if I just went with the safest one it’d be that I’ll, um,” she wet her lips again and squinted up at him. “I’ll miss you.”

He had a million different things he could have said but each died as quick as the last on his tongue until he pushed them all away and pulled her close to cover her lips with his. She melted into him immediately, her hands sliding up his chest to clasp behind his neck. He heard her let out a quiet little hum of contentment and he had to stop himself from running his hands down her body and hoisting her up to fit more tightly against him.

She pulled away first again, her cheeks light pink and her eyes sparkling up at him beneath her long, dark eyelashes. Steve let his nose brush against hers. “I have a bunch of stupid things I want to say, too.”

Darcy shook her head. “Don’t,” she said softly and stretched up to kiss him again, gentle and sweet and not nearly long enough before she pulled away. “Just…be safe. If you can.” She bit her lip. “And if either of us are supposed to say these stupid things…” she shrugged in a poor attempt at careless. “Then maybe I’ll see you again some day.”

He nodded, afraid to say anything that would give away how much he wanted that. How hard it was going to be to drive away from her—this sweet, soft woman who felt more like home than anything he could remember. He kissed her one more time and watched the rear-view mirror until her outline blurred in the horizon and the distance swallowed her up.

***

The time-clock may have been a relic from the seventies, but it made a satisfying sound when Darcy ran her card through at the end of her shift a month later. “You headin’ out?” Trudy asked from behind the counter as Darcy pushed through the swinging door and slipped her purse over her shoulder. She nodded and covered her mouth when a yawn crept up on her. “Did you get your package?”

She stopped and turned back before her hand touched the door. “Package?”

Trudy nodded. “Yeah, it came yesterday. Pete told me he put it back in the office for you.” Darcy’s expression must have remained blank because the older woman dug into the pocket of her apron and offered her a set of keys. “Guess he forgot to mention it,” she muttered, shaking her head.

Confused, Darcy took the keys and walked back to the closet-sized manager’s office where she unlocked the door and found a small white padded envelope on the cluttered desk. She tucked it into her bag and hopped on her bike, pedaling the six miles to the motor lodge she’d called home for the last year and a half.

There was no return address and the handwriting gave her no indication, but Darcy tabled her curiosity long enough to take a shower and change into comfortable clothes. Smelling fresher and feeling better than she had, Darcy slid the blade of her pocketknife beneath the seal of the envelope and emptied out the contents.

A sealed white envelope, a folded piece of paper, and a black stick phone—the kind she hadn’t seen since she was in high school. Bewildered, Darcy picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. “ _Call me when you can smell the ocean. I’ll meet you there.”_

Even more confused, she picked up the stick phone and turned it on, surprised to find it had a full battery and a single name and phone number saved. The sight of his name brought a smile to her face and an unexpected lump to her throat. She reached for the envelope, hoping he’d written more, given her something to hold onto.

But there was no letter inside the envelope. Instead, she found the grill ticket she’d written up for him—her obnoxiously large ‘#3 with everything’ and his total scribbled in the bottom corner—and a small stack of bills. Eleven of them, to be precise, Darcy counted as she fanned them out on the ugly floral bedspread.

Three singles, a five, and seven hundred-dollar bills.

$708.00

Darcy stared at the money for a long time. She could have been too proud to take it. A seven hundred dollar tip on an eight-dollar check was excessive, no matter who it was from. But then she thought about her car waiting for her at the garage--the unpaid invoice the only thing between this unexpected chapter of her life and the next. She thought about how good it would feel to keep going, to leave Texas behind and get back on the road, to feel sand between her toes and breathe in something other than cows and oil fields. She thought about Steve and how she hadn't been lying when she'd said she'd miss him. She _did_ miss him. She wanted to see him again. Touch him, kiss him, make sure he was alright. She thought about all that all while adventure stirred in her veins again.

And then she got up, grabbed her suitcase, and started packing.

**Author's Note:**

> PS: Thanks to my sweet Crim for giving me just enough rubber ducking to finish this thing and get it out of the ICU of my word docs.


End file.
